“Seattle Seahawks coach Pete Carroll is 72, the oldest coach in the NFL, with a Super Bowl trophy and the 17th-most wins (165) in NFL history. His team meetings are also a bit … unorthodox.
Jermaine Kearse (wide receiver): Honestly, the team meetings were a sh– ton of fun.
Malcolm Smith (linebacker): His team meetings are honestly what I think sets him apart from other coaches.
Chad Brown (former NFL linebacker and coaching intern): Absolutely, without a doubt, the best team meetings of any team I was on as a coach or a player.
Luke Willson (tight end): I get drafted and come here for rookie minicamp with no idea what to expect. It’s dead silent in the team meeting room. There are a bunch of rookies who don’t even have free-agent contracts, a couple drafted guys and a couple of undrafted free agents. He just storms in the room and goes: “Alright, alright, let’s get this thing started right.” He’s like, “OK, kickers, get up! Who are the kickers here?” We had a couple kickers, and he has them do a basketball shootout, and he goes, “Whoever wins gets to stay; whoever doesn’t gets cut.” He’s totally kidding and I’m just laughing. The next thing we know, we’re shooting basketballs, he’s got a couple of YouTube videos and we go out to practice and music is blaring the whole time and he’s dancing around.
Ben Malcolmson (Carroll’s chief of staff): Barnum and Bailey’s three-ring circus here.
Willson: I was like, “Dude … this guy is kind of crazy.”
Justin Britt (center): He would do what he called “the safe place.” Everyone had a bullsh– story about them and none of it was true, but if you didn’t know, it seemed believable.
Uchenna Nwosu (outside linebacker): He tells all these stories other guys went through … selling the hell out that story, making it sound really good and believable.
Britt: He had people believe that my mom had this anger towards me and resented me because of how large my head was at birth. I had to play along with that for like four years.
Golden Tate (wide receiver): One team meeting he gets up there and says: “Hey, we’ve got this new Gatorade. Why don’t you guys make sure you try one out before practice? They’re supposed to hydrate you really well. We don’t want you out here pulling anything.”
Shaquem Griffin (linebacker): Pete Carroll is just in a land of his own.
Tate: We would open up the cooler and this fake snake would pop out. We’d all jump and some of us would scream. He had a camera in there. Of course, the next day in the team meeting, he selected all the good ones and premiered it to the entire team.
Britt: He would have a set amount of time in the day allocated to just having pure fun.
Malcolmson: He hosted scooter races in the coaches’ offices. There was a loop that he set up, and he would do timed scooter races.
Brown: I was excited every day to go to work because, what is Pete going to do today? What fun thing is going to happen?
Britt: By the time we got to the serious stuff, we were all like: “I’m awake, I’m ready, my senses are right. Let’s go.”
Brown: I’ve never been in a football environment like that.
Tate: He was a jokester. He was a serious jokester.
Malcolmson: Pete told our video crew: “Hey, if anyone trips (at practice) during a drill or a route, if they fall down, you’ve got to edit it and slice it with sniper footage.”
Kearse: Everybody would be talking, and then the lights would just go down low.
Malcolmson: It would cut to dramatic music and a sniper scene in a movie.
K.J. Wright (linebacker): Like “American Sniper” or something. It would be like: “I have an eye on him. I’m locked on the target.”
Malcolmson: It’s like a minute-long buildup, and everyone is like: “Oh no, who’s gonna get got?”
Wright: And then the sniper would shoot, the guy would fall at practice and blood would splash out. It was the funniest sh– ever.
Britt: By the time we got to the serious stuff, we were all like: “I’m awake, I’m ready, my senses are right. Let’s go.”
Brown: I’ve never been in a football environment like that.
Tate: He was a jokester. He was a serious jokester.
Malcolmson: Pete told our video crew: “Hey, if anyone trips (at practice) during a drill or a route, if they fall down, you’ve got to edit it and slice it with sniper footage.”
Kearse: Everybody would be talking, and then the lights would just go down low.
Malcolmson: It would cut to dramatic music and a sniper scene in a movie.
K.J. Wright (linebacker): Like “American Sniper” or something. It would be like: “I have an eye on him. I’m locked on the target.”
Malcolmson: It’s like a minute-long buildup, and everyone is like: “Oh no, who’s gonna get got?”
Wright: And then the sniper would shoot, the guy would fall at practice and blood would splash out. It was the funniest sh– ever.
Nick Bellore (fullback:) He had a surgery on his leg or his knee. He came back to the team meeting right after he got it done.
Tyler Mabry (tight end): He’s driving on the golf cart at practice, and then I don’t know if he had a cane, but he’s walking, then he threw it down and started running.
Bellore: He just came sprinting in like you’d see a professional wrestler going into the ring.
Mabry: Like this man just got saved by Jesus.
Bellore: He sprinted down and then went and changed direction, and everyone was going nuts and he ran a pro agility (test). It was literally like he was doing a combine workout. I’ve never laughed that hard in a meeting.
Britt: Every new player that comes there goes: “Don’t go somewhere else. This is the best place.” And it truly was.
Malcolmson: For the New York Super Bowl, that was the first year our free-throw shooting contest really took off. We started to do it during almost every team meeting, and there was an in-season tournament. It really became part of the culture.
Non-paywall
“Seattle Seahawks coach Pete Carroll is 72, the oldest coach in the NFL, with a Super Bowl trophy and the 17th-most wins (165) in NFL history. His team meetings are also a bit … unorthodox.
Jermaine Kearse (wide receiver): Honestly, the team meetings were a sh– ton of fun.
Malcolm Smith (linebacker): His team meetings are honestly what I think sets him apart from other coaches.
Chad Brown (former NFL linebacker and coaching intern): Absolutely, without a doubt, the best team meetings of any team I was on as a coach or a player.
Luke Willson (tight end): I get drafted and come here for rookie minicamp with no idea what to expect. It’s dead silent in the team meeting room. There are a bunch of rookies who don’t even have free-agent contracts, a couple drafted guys and a couple of undrafted free agents. He just storms in the room and goes: “Alright, alright, let’s get this thing started right.” He’s like, “OK, kickers, get up! Who are the kickers here?” We had a couple kickers, and he has them do a basketball shootout, and he goes, “Whoever wins gets to stay; whoever doesn’t gets cut.” He’s totally kidding and I’m just laughing. The next thing we know, we’re shooting basketballs, he’s got a couple of YouTube videos and we go out to practice and music is blaring the whole time and he’s dancing around.
Ben Malcolmson (Carroll’s chief of staff): Barnum and Bailey’s three-ring circus here.
Willson: I was like, “Dude … this guy is kind of crazy.”
Justin Britt (center): He would do what he called “the safe place.” Everyone had a bullsh– story about them and none of it was true, but if you didn’t know, it seemed believable.
Uchenna Nwosu (outside linebacker): He tells all these stories other guys went through … selling the hell out that story, making it sound really good and believable.
Britt: He had people believe that my mom had this anger towards me and resented me because of how large my head was at birth. I had to play along with that for like four years.
Golden Tate (wide receiver): One team meeting he gets up there and says: “Hey, we’ve got this new Gatorade. Why don’t you guys make sure you try one out before practice? They’re supposed to hydrate you really well. We don’t want you out here pulling anything.”
Shaquem Griffin (linebacker): Pete Carroll is just in a land of his own.
Tate: We would open up the cooler and this fake snake would pop out. We’d all jump and some of us would scream. He had a camera in there. Of course, the next day in the team meeting, he selected all the good ones and premiered it to the entire team.
Britt: He would have a set amount of time in the day allocated to just having pure fun.
Malcolmson: He hosted scooter races in the coaches’ offices. There was a loop that he set up, and he would do timed scooter races.
Brown: I was excited every day to go to work because, what is Pete going to do today? What fun thing is going to happen?
Britt: By the time we got to the serious stuff, we were all like: “I’m awake, I’m ready, my senses are right. Let’s go.”
Brown: I’ve never been in a football environment like that.
Tate: He was a jokester. He was a serious jokester.
Malcolmson: Pete told our video crew: “Hey, if anyone trips (at practice) during a drill or a route, if they fall down, you’ve got to edit it and slice it with sniper footage.”
Kearse: Everybody would be talking, and then the lights would just go down low.
Malcolmson: It would cut to dramatic music and a sniper scene in a movie.
K.J. Wright (linebacker): Like “American Sniper” or something. It would be like: “I have an eye on him. I’m locked on the target.”
Malcolmson: It’s like a minute-long buildup, and everyone is like: “Oh no, who’s gonna get got?”
Wright: And then the sniper would shoot, the guy would fall at practice and blood would splash out. It was the funniest sh– ever.
Britt: By the time we got to the serious stuff, we were all like: “I’m awake, I’m ready, my senses are right. Let’s go.”
Brown: I’ve never been in a football environment like that.
Tate: He was a jokester. He was a serious jokester.
Malcolmson: Pete told our video crew: “Hey, if anyone trips (at practice) during a drill or a route, if they fall down, you’ve got to edit it and slice it with sniper footage.”
Kearse: Everybody would be talking, and then the lights would just go down low.
Malcolmson: It would cut to dramatic music and a sniper scene in a movie.
K.J. Wright (linebacker): Like “American Sniper” or something. It would be like: “I have an eye on him. I’m locked on the target.”
Malcolmson: It’s like a minute-long buildup, and everyone is like: “Oh no, who’s gonna get got?”
Wright: And then the sniper would shoot, the guy would fall at practice and blood would splash out. It was the funniest sh– ever.
Nick Bellore (fullback:) He had a surgery on his leg or his knee. He came back to the team meeting right after he got it done.
Tyler Mabry (tight end): He’s driving on the golf cart at practice, and then I don’t know if he had a cane, but he’s walking, then he threw it down and started running.
Bellore: He just came sprinting in like you’d see a professional wrestler going into the ring.
Mabry: Like this man just got saved by Jesus.
Bellore: He sprinted down and then went and changed direction, and everyone was going nuts and he ran a pro agility (test). It was literally like he was doing a combine workout. I’ve never laughed that hard in a meeting.
Britt: Every new player that comes there goes: “Don’t go somewhere else. This is the best place.” And it truly was.
Malcolmson: For the New York Super Bowl, that was the first year our free-throw shooting contest really took off. We started to do it during almost every team meeting, and there was an in-season tournament. It really became part of the culture.